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This sounds great but without the formal concept of an apprenticeship like the Germans have I'm not sure how I see it working out for you in the long term. Giv

This sounds great but without the formal concept of an apprenticeship like the Germans have I'm not sure how I see it working out for you in the long term. Given current market forces your interns will leave you in 4-6 months. At that point you will have spent the most resources in training them up and not reaped the benefit of cheap labor. In Germany, apprenticeships last for over 2 years, with your employer responsible for your schooling (which the SC program is doing), in coordination with the unions and the government. It's a system of checks and balances. You can't go out and get work unless you finish your apprenticeship. Finishing your apprenticeship is cultural as well. I'd definitely like to hear more about your program and what you are doing to address turnover.

thomaskcr 12y ago
Having them sign something was brought up a few times, in the end I decided against even seeing if it was an option. (I'm not even sure it's possible). Its a smaller group of apprentices, before the program started I talked to each one about salary expectations for them after the program and then also about how I'm investing a lot of my time into them, so I'm hoping they do the right thing and pay that forward. In the end, if someone doesn't want to be there then I think forcing them to stay is worse than talking to them about why and then how we can make it a smooth transition for both of us. Plus, I'm super proud of what I've built here. If they left, I'm pretty confident they'll make a future manager happy. I'm working hard to create confident problem solvers -- so it's not really the worst thing for my ego if they do awesome somewhere else. As long as I retain a few over the next 5 years, I'll be happy. So basically, we have some really interesting problems we're working on, the company is a pretty nice place to be, I don't want people being here against their will and business karma (I know if I can't keep them all I won't screw them over with no notice, hoping that comes back to me). The cheap labor thing ends when they become full time -- my goal is to get them to full time as fast as possible since the goal of the program is to produce full time programmers. By that time, they're being paid what we would hire a dev for -- the biggest benefit is easier to find developers, we know exactly what we're getting, and most have other skills/experience that add more value to the team.

thomaskcr 12y ago

Having them sign something was brought up a few times, in the end I decided against even seeing if it was an option. (I'm not even sure it's possible). Its a smaller group of apprentices, before the program started I talked to each one about salary expectations for them after the program and then also about how I'm investing a lot of my time into them, so I'm hoping they do the right thing and pay that forward. In the end, if someone doesn't want to be there then I think forcing them to stay is worse than talking to them about why and then how we can make it a smooth transition for both of us. Plus, I'm super proud of what I've built here. If they left, I'm pretty confident they'll make a future manager happy. I'm working hard to create confident problem solvers -- so it's not really the worst thing for my ego if they do awesome somewhere else. As long as I retain a few over the next 5 years, I'll be happy. So basically, we have some really interesting problems we're working on, the company is a pretty nice place to be, I don't want people being here against their will and business karma (I know if I can't keep them all I won't screw them over with no notice, hoping that comes back to me). The cheap labor thing ends when they become full time -- my goal is to get them to full time as fast as possible since the goal of the program is to produce full time programmers. By that time, they're being paid what we would hire a dev for -- the biggest benefit is easier to find developers, we know exactly what we're getting, and most have other skills/experience that add more value to the team.